iPhone Farting apps go to war

Pull My Finger looking for damages from iFart

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In the category of 'you couldn't make this up' one iPhone fart app maker is suing the other for what they suggest are dirty tricks in promoting his iFart app over Pull My Finger.

Air-o-matic, the makers of Pull My Finger, want $50,000 in damages from iFart Mobile creator Joel Comm, for using the words 'pull my finger' in a promotional YouTube video, for saying his own app was better and for entering into Twitter conversations on the matter.

Air-o-matic's site is down at the time of writing, but according to the iPhoneblog they say in a blogpost: "we estimate he cost us about $500K in sales.

"His app leapfrogged ours immediately after he started doing these things. That happened to be Christmas week. He sold hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of his app in the next month, in the spot he kicked us off of.

"We talked to our attorney, and decided to try to end this swiftly by asking for 1/10 of our estimated lost sales, plus attorney fees. $50K is about one week in the top spot in the App Store. We thought that was about right."

iFart's side

Joel Comm on the other hand explains: "As a very small part of my marketing I uploaded a video to YouTube called "iFart Mobile - Pull My Finger" intending to leverage the term commonly used to set off flatulence. I never imagined a common phrase like that would qualify for Federal trademark status, and I don't believe it does.

"However, Air-O-Matic, the people that developed Pull My Finger, beg to differ. Since we did our first press release and linked the common phrase "pull my finger" to our app, they have been contacting us and asking us to stop.

"As a matter of good will, I changed the press release the very same day they contacted me."

Who's right and who's wrong? The answer, it appears, is blowing in the wind.